I pulled into the Witch Parking Only spot, parked the car and leaned into him. He shifted my bags and held me. After a slow, sweet kiss that left me near tears, he continued. “But I don’t think I will ever understand women.”
I punched him, and we began the tedious process of getting all of my bags and boxes upstairs.
~
Since I had seven trees, no joke, we decided to put up a few of them while Vickie slept. It was funny. I had been married for a few years, so occupying the same space with a man was not an altogether unfamiliar sensation.
Somehow it was different with Vance. Laughing, Christmas music playing softly in the CD player, we decorated. We hung lights and ribbons and pretty glass globes. We sat out Christmas scented candles and filled red bowls with potpourri. We argued about how one decorates a tree, and I won. Each tree had a theme. One was in reds, one in blues, another in glass and gold with red plastic poinsettia accents.
And through the whole process, he touched me when he could. He met my gaze and wasn’t afraid of me, even though I had to have been pretty creepy earlier. Then again, it probably was pretty hard to creep out a vampire.
Who knew you could play domestic with the undead?
CHAPTER Ten
Either the sucking of auras at the bar or the amazing vampire bite left me in a darn good mood. I opened my eyes and stretched in the sunlight the next morning, smiling like a loon. Still grinning stupidly, I made my way to the kitchen and brewed a pot of coffee. I glanced at the clock on the pot and frowned. Nine-twenty. Why did that number bother me?
“Shit!” I yelped and ran into Vickie’s room. A mass lay buried deeply in the A-B-C comforter, only one gangly foot sticking out, sock half on, half off.
“Vickie.” I pulled the blanket down to see a snarled mass of blond hair. Pushing it aside, I saw her mouth hung open and drool pooled onto the pillow. “Vickie, school!” I shook her shoulder.
One blue eye opened and blinked at me. When it started to drift closed again, I tugged her into a sitting position. “Vickie, it is nine-twenty. You were supposed to be at school fifteen minutes ago.”
“Call me off sick,” she grumbled and tried to retrieve her blanket.
“Vickie Smith, you get your buns out of that bed and into the shower, now.” Dramatically heaving herself out of the bed, she picked a wedgie and dragged herself into the bathroom. I went to her dresser and pulled out a sweater, T-shirt, underwear and jeans, and followed her. I opened the bathroom door and put the pile onto the toilet seat, grinning a little at her off-key rendition of Barbie Girl.
Back to the kitchen, I poured coffee and listened. In a few moments, I heard the blow drier. Before long, my daughter, dressed, hair somewhat tamed, and still looking bleary eyed, shuffled into the kitchen.
“What do you want for breakfast?”
“An hour more of sleep?” she tried.
I glared at her.
She sighed. “Bagel, juice, yogurt, granola.”
I nodded. The usual. She looked around as I put the bowl in front of her. “Did Santa start visiting before Christmas to do the decorating?”
“No, honey, I was up kind of late last night, and I put some up. We can do the tree in the living room and one for your room together when you get home.”
She smiled at me, “Cool. Is this all new stuff?”
“Yeah, I figured we’re having a new start, so we could start new with this, too. I have all the ornaments you made in the trunk though. We still have to use those. Those are special.” I sat down at the table, and we chatted until she was done eating.
I wasn’t thrilled that she was late on her second day, but we were getting along better than we had for quite some time. My earlier good mood returned, so I smiled as I signed her in while my wonderful kid chatted with the secretary. Vickie could make friends anywhere, and it looked as if she was well on her way to charming another school administration. Then I heard what they were talking about. “So, last night, my mom put up five trees and we are going to put up two more tonight. She made glass bowls and wreaths and the prettiest handmade ornaments.”
Well, Walmart made them, but I was amused she thought I did all that just last night. I mean, who doesn’t want to be super mom? I didn’t disagree, I mean, I let her believe in the Tooth Fairy and Santa, why not let her harmlessly think I handmade ornaments and bowls and wreaths?
“Really?” The secretary smiled. Then she appeared from one of the doors in the office hallway.
Mary Cartwright graduated with Mia and me. I was a quiet kid back in the day. I had this big, super-secret and couldn’t tell anyone, so I steered clear of a lot of people. A budding witch, Mia kept her nose buried in a book to figure out more spells, floating down the hall in weird floaty skirts with rocks dangling around her neck. We weren’t exactly the most popular girls in our senior class.
Mary was class president, head cheerleader, valedictorian, and a score of other equally meaningful titles. Needless to say, we weren’t exactly in the same circle of friends. We weren’t even in the same orbit.
Mary saw me and I got the instant impression, based on the sickly sweet smile on her face, she’d heard about the divorce, embellished it, and gloried in yet another triumph against someone smaller and weaker. I wanted to either hit her with something very hard, very dull, and with much repetition, or else melt into the carpet, it was a toss-up. Instead, I turned up the wattage of my smile to soccer mom and returned her gushing, Oh, it has been so long, with Yes, so nice to see you. Both were equally authentic.
She came to the counter separating the offices from the doorway, and raised the partition to put a hand on my kid’s head. I wanted to slap it off, but I kept my fake smile in place.
“This must be your little girl. Oh, she looks so much like her father.”
I kept the smile on, and pictured her bleeding out from a thousand tiny pinpricks.
“Oh, I forgot. He left you for that doctor, I heard. So sorry about bringing him up.” No she wasn’t, the emaciated, plastic, evil woman. He didn’t leave me for a doctor, the new wife was a podiatrist. Which isn’t even, like, a real doctor. I mean, feet. Come on, really.
I tilted my head. “Oh, ancient history. You look so good! Did you get a nose job?”
Her smile flickered. “Oh, you know how it is. Time makes us forget how exactly someone looked. You just haven’t seen me for so long—”
“Ah, that must be it.” I smiled a little for real. Score is at one-one, you raving bitch. How much blood are we gonna stand here and draw, because I got more where that came from.
“I heard your sweet little girl saying that you decorated the house last night…did you really do all that in one night?”
Okay, I could tell the truth, and shrug it off. Or I could lie through my teeth and pretend to be Harriet from Ozzie and Harriet. “Oh, it was nothing. I do so love the holidays.” I went with lie.
“Fantastic! We needed someone else for the school decorating committee.”
For the what?
Hang on there. “I don’t really have much time on my hands right now. I mean, we just got in town and—”
“Oh, honey, if you did all that last night, we must have you! Think about the kids. That is who it is all about.” She stroked my daughter’s hair, and I barely restrained myself from ripping off her arm.
“Of course, I would be glad to—
“Great! We have the fundraiser coming up, and we sell items the moms make…you know wreaths, ornaments, baked goods in a big Christmas fair. It is next week. I will put you down for how many items?”
I looked at the sheet she stuffed in front of my nose. She was down for twenty items. “Thirty,” I blurted. When was I going to have time to make thirty of anything?
“Wow, okay. Whichever mom raises the most money gets a lovely spa package, donated by the local country club.”
“It’s not about the winning, Mary, honey, it is about the kids.”
I snatched my kid from her red talons in a
way that did not look like snatching and walked her to her class. I kissed her goodbye and went to the car to hit my head on the steering wheel. Me and my big mouth.
~
When I got home, Sven sat downstairs opening a Fed-Ex box of little Hindu statues. I plopped cross-legged on the carpet next to him and fiddled with one.
“Careful with that.”
I nodded and stuck the little guy on the shelf. “He sure is a tubby little guy.”
“Girl. That is a Hindu fertility symbol.”
I rubbed my hand on my pant leg, hoping to get off any fertility cooties.
Suddenly, I noticed what CD he had playing over the speakers of the store. “Who is that?” I felt shaky.
“Van Morrison. Vance loves him.”
“My dad did, too.” I knew why it bothered me. I had few memories of my father, he’d died when I was so young. This song was very seventies, really. Nothing to get upset over.
But since Vance told his story about the sirens, I understood for the first time why he died. My mother always said car wreck, but at almost forty, I found out it was probably murder.
He used to sing this song to me. Vividly, one memory of my dad sprang to mind. Holding me, singing this song… “What was your favorite part, Daddy?” I had asked him.
“I like the part where the sailors cry.” He tickled me. “Can you picture a bunch of sailors crying?”
“No,” I remembered answering. I remembered his eyes, green as the ocean and crinkled at the corners. “I like the floating part.”
“You would.” He had smiled and tickled me harder until I was breathless.
Then he’d held me and sang, We were born before the wind… Let your soul and spirit fly into the mystic. I blinked back tears, thinking of his rich baritone, sounding like the musical constant of waves crashing on rock. I hit the stop button. I could breathe again.
I turned back to Sven. “Wanna go get breakfast?”
He looked up from his unpacking. “Sure, but its more lunch time than breakfast.”
“Great. We can go to Hilmack’s. My treat. I love sea food.”
“The restaurant?”
I shook my head. “Are you from around here?” I tried hard to shove off the mood the song had brought on. I grabbed my car keys.
“No, why? Isn’t Hilmack’s really expensive?”
He wore a tee today that read, I invoke, therefore I am. “Nope. At least not if you get carryout,” I explained. We went to my car after Sven retrieved his god-awful leopard print blazer. I made a mental note to get him a new coat for Christmas. Sven curled into my car, and I put in a happy, peppy, pop CD. He grinned, and we car-danced our way up the hill. Hilmack’s was in front of us, and I turned down a side street.
“I thought you said we were getting Hilmack’s?”
“We are.” I pulled in front of a squat building. Hardly bigger than a garage, they’d painted the big glass windows on the front with large letters advertising Lake Perch, Salmon and other fishy things. I got out and inhaled deeply. The very air smelled like grease and fish.
Sven followed me to a glass counter filled with fresh fishy-ness. A white aproned woman behind the counter passed white cardboard bakery boxes over to people lined up to the door. Hilmack’s was popular for a reason.
“Honey, we are going to cook?” Sven looked doubtfully at me.
“Nope. Lemme see…I want two crab cakes and some of the Lake Perch. And fries. Oo-Oo, and a big, and I am talking huge, tartar sauce. Whaddya want, Sven?” He still looked doubtful, but he ordered the same. “Come here.” I pulled him aside so the next person could order.
We waited a few minutes then we were called back to the counter. I paid and retrieved my white cardboard boxes. We shuffled back to the car and, as soon as I was inside, I opened my box. Steam poured out and clouded the windshield. I sniffed in ecstasy.
“So, they cook fish. You could have saved a boatload of cash just going to Long John Silver’s.” Sven still looked doubtful.
“Ouch, oh my God, that is hot!” I shrieked, tearing off some of my crab cake.
“Can’t you even wait for it to—” I stuffed crab cake into his mouth.
He looked at me bug eyed, tried to blow out the hot air then froze. His eyes closed and he chewed very slowly. His eyes opened and rolled back in his head. “I think I just ruined my pants,” he said.
I giggled, and we gorged. Sated, we sat, the windows clouded and in a car that reeked of fish. It looked like we had a lunchtime quickie rather than lunch.
“Why has Mia never taken me to that heavenly place?” wondered Sven aloud. Then he burped.
“She is anti-grease,” I replied. “She eats like a rabbit. No one told her that they only live, like, what? Ten years?”
“That wasn’t fish, that was nectar from the gods.”
I chuckled. Hilmack’s affected most people like that. “You think that was good, you should try actually eating in their restaurant.” I leaned back. “I am supposed to shop for the circle. What do witches consider munchie food?”
“As you are in the car with one, and I can probably still roll this gut down the aisle of a store. I could probably repay lunch by going with you.”
“You’re a witch?”
“Have you read any of my T-shirts?” he replied, eyebrows up.
“But I thought women were witches and men were warlocks or something?”
“How have you been friends with Mia this long and managed not to know a thing about anything?” He gave me an amazed expression.
“I don’t like weird stuff.” I wasn’t sure why I bothered defending it.
“Witch can mean man or woman. The practice is diversified. Warlocks are either people who practice demonology or fake. Wicca is a religion, a system of belief, and practitioners are generally referred to as witches. Male and female.”
“Okay.” I turned on the defroster and, after a few minutes, could see well enough to pull out. We shopped and bought what looked like normal munchie food to me. I was sort of disappointed, truth be told. I thought for sure witches would eat something more exotic than Doritos and cookies.
Back at the shop, and I hauled my purchases upstairs and put them away. Looking around, there was nothing to clean. Nothing needed my attention. It turned out having Sven in the house was like having a twenty-four hour maid service. The dishes magically moved from dishwasher to cupboard, the garbage magically disappeared when it began to get full, and the carpets were magically always vacuumed. That a man did it all was amazing to me since my ex-husband never picked up so much as a dirty sock.
Strolling the room, I moved to the big recliner near one of the floor to ceiling windows at the front of the apartment. Picking up a book, I immediately sat it back down.
I looked out the window until I worked my brain around exactly what bothered me and then pulled out my cell phone. Hitting memory two, I then listened to the other end of the line ring. “Hello,” came my mother’s voice.
Laughter filled the background. It sounded like the tinkling of bells.
“Are you busy?” I gripped the phone.
“No, I was just leaving court.” The laughter and music faded, and I waited until her car door dinged shut. Silence filled the line.
“Janie?”
“Dad didn’t live with us, did he?”
She sighed. “No, you know that. Why?”
“And yet I saw him sometimes.”
“Yes. Janie, you haven’t asked questions like this since you were a child.”
“He used to sing to me—”
“Yes, dear, he was a siren. That was what he did. He sang.” She stated it in the flat tone that one might assume when speaking to someone very stupid. I could picture her, hair glossy and perfect, face pinched in annoyance.
I plowed on, regardless. “And he died.”
“Yes. You were about four.”
“Was it a car accident, Mom?”
Silence. Then, “What brought this up?”
“Mom, you said there weren’t vampires.”
She was so quiet I could hear the click of her nails on her steering wheel. “Have you met one then?” she finally asked.
I pinched my eyes closed and clutched the phone. “You knew they were real?”
“Janie, you are a creature of light and magic. Things of darkness are better off avoided, and I had hoped that—”
“I would never meet one and ask you how my dad really died.”
I heard her suck in a breath. She let it out slowly and then said, “Yes.”
“So, I am asking.”
Silence.
“I am asking how my dad died, mom.”
“This is not a short story.”
“Great. Come to Mia’s store, up the stairs, and tell me a story.”
More clicking. Finally, “Fine. I will be about fifteen minutes.”
“That works.” Fifteen minutes later, the door opened and my mother came in. She perched on the end of the seat across from me, as if concerned it would cover her in witch germs if she relaxed, and regarded me steadily.
“What are you wearing?” she began, but I stopped that line of conversation with one of my own.
“So, you met my dad and fell in love and—”
She shifted in her seat. “You are grown now and understand that not all relationships are based on love.”
“In lust, then,” I tried.
“No, there are other things.” She waved an arm.
“You didn’t even lust him?” I smirked disbelievingly.
“Let me tell the story, then you can play judgmental all you want. Your father had a gift. He was a siren, a very powerful being. I was attracted to that and to the idea of the child he and I could create. I mean, look at you. You are one of the most powerful creatures—”
“Daughter. I’m your daughter, Mother, not a creature. I am not anything but a person, trying to figure out why you would sleep with him if your only motivation was to make a powerful creature.”
“Power is everything. I have told you that for years. He understood and we made you. I won’t say that feelings weren’t involved—”
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